Life is grand

The rule is that the celebrity will spend 80% of the article writing about themselves and 20% on what they are reviewing.

I just read a review in the Style section of the London Sunday Times of a chippie by A. A. Gill in which he spent all but two paragraphs talking about his dyslexia.

Oh my. I knew Severance was going to be a gory movie but based on the trailer alone I thought it was going to be more black-humour than terror. Wrong! Yes, there is black-humour in it and you will laugh at times but for the rest of the movie you’ll be clinging to your girlfriend as you peer through your fingers. It is good though. Nothing slick an false about it. Just a gritty, black, tense thriller that makes an upcoming trip to Romania for me a bit worrisome.

Recommended.

Airport bookshops are notoriously terrible. So it was with the fear of God in me that I entered one last month after finishing another book earlier than expected. With a 12 hour flight ahead of me I had to have something to read. Tai-Pan by James Clavell seemed the best of a bad bunch and I bought it.

I have to admit it isn’t half bad. Yes, the characters are unreal and the events unbelievable but like a good Hollywood blockbuster it is entertaining, exciting and an easy read. I almost want to get the next in the series.

A movie about the making of a movie on The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy which is laugh out loud funny. Though very much in a British way, so if dry humour doesn’t float your boat, avoid. I genuinely came to dislike the main character, which is intentional and very well done.

Sometimes you wonder if reviewers are simply meeting word counts when they make statements like this:

For example, a search for feeds related to ecology retrieved only 41 items–quadruple what Google Reader found, but Bloglines turned up 383 and Newsgator Online dug up 68

The use of “only” tells me that 41 is bad while 383 is good. What about quality though? Did the reviewer spend a few minutes going through Bloglines’ 383 results? Rojo’s 41 might be 41 brilliant sources while Bloglines’ 383 sources might have just 3 quality sources.

I am complaining because this isn’t some part-time reviewer but a paid reviewer on CNet. If they aren’t going to spend the time doing proper reviews I am not sure I need to bother checking them against the millions of blogs out there offering the same but in a better format. No wonder their traffic is slipping.

And if you were wondering I prefer Bloglines to Rojo but think Bloglines’ “related” results are next to useless.

User Interface Design for Programmers by Joel Spolsky is a worthwhile read though there are better books on the subject out there (e.g. Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug (which Joel recommends too.)) The information is good though I find Joel’s tone to be grating. This is the same Joel of Joel on Software fame and as I have said before the man has good things to say but says them in the most awful ways. Arrogant is the main word that comes to mind. Steve Krug in comparison respects users and avoids calling them morons at every turn.

What Joel has to say on the program model vs. the user model is very helpful though. If that is all you get from the book then you are doing well.

So if you have an hour or two free (the book is short) and have read the other books on the subject give Joel’s a shot.

I am not a great fan of wikis but Jot Spot with it’s semi-structured style works well. It has the usual free-style wiki pages that let you enter text, links, formatting and so on but throws in the ability to create structured pages such as calendars, photo galleries, file “cabinets” and spreadsheets.

The spreadsheets are especially interesting. Create a spreadsheet with address details and you can view a map that plots the address and related data on a Google Maps like world map. Put dates into your spreadsheet and you can view a calendar which automatically displays events in the calendar pulled from the spreadsheet. This is something that other spreadsheet developers could emulate.

Jot Spot wikis also have a dash of style to them, something most wiki systems lack. Jot Spot has a clean look without the usual wiki clutter and lends itself towards non-techies.

Pricing is a bit much in my opinion but all in all, a really good, hosted wiki solution.

I have some serious gaps in my music collection but have thankfully plugged it a bit by getting The Greatest Hits by Fatboy Slim. Naturally I have heard of Slim and even enjoyed much of his work but have never owned a Slim album. Scorn hit compilations all you want but they can be very useful in catching up on an artist. This one proves to not only be useful but also damned good. Most of the Slim tracks you know (Rockafeller Skank, Right Here, Right Now, Gangsta Tripping) plus a few I didn’t (Santa Cruz, Slash Dot Dash).

The bonus DVD is also quite nice. It includes an hilarious fan-made video featuring kittens.

So, well recommended if you don’t have Fatboy Slim albums already.